March 9, 2016

Decoding Hillary: The Truth Vs. What She Claims About Her Wall St. Record

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/what-hillary-really-saying-about-wall-st-when-she-tries-talk-tough-about-reforming-it


Even when she tries to act tough on banks, Clinton can't hide her Wall Street ties.


"I went to Wall Street when I was a United States senator. I told them they were wrecking the economy. I asked for a moratorium on foreclosures. I asked that we do more to try to prevent what I worried was going to happen. I also called for closing loopholes including the carried interest loophole. I also called for changes in CEO pay. I have a record."

This was one of the most truthful and revealing responses Hillary has made during the entire campaign. It came during the Flint debate when asked when she would release her Wall Street speech transcripts. (Full debate transcript here.)

What is she really saying? As a senator from New York I have a personal relationship with these guys. I can talk sense to them. They will listen to me.

To Hillary this is playing a strong hand. To everyone else it shows weakness and a startling naïveté about power.

For starters, they obviously blew her off. She got nothing. We got nothing.

"I asked for a moratorium." They didn't do it.
"I asked that we do more to try to prevent what I worried was going to happen." It happened.
"I also called for closing loopholes including the carried interest loopholes. None were closed even when the Democrats
controlled both houses and the presidency.
"I also called for changes in CEO pay." Didn't happen.

Hillary is admitting that neither Wall Street nor her colleagues in the Senate listened to her. In short, she was incredibly ineffectual when it came to reining in Wall Street. And this comes from someone who claims she can get things done in the real world.

"I have a record."

Hillary believes her ineffectual votes and failed meetings add up to a record. They do. But not the one she would like us to see.

(snip)

What is she really saying? As a senator from New York I have a personal relationship with these guys. I can talk sense to them. They will listen to me.

Remember when Bush said the price of Oil wouldn't be a problem because he knew the Saudis and could "Jawbone with them" ?

March 7, 2016

Why Bernie Sanders Is the Democratic Party’s Best Hope to Win the White House in November

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/07/why-bernie-sanders-democratic-partys-best-hope-win-white-house-november


What many expected to be a coronation for establishment candidate Hillary Clinton has morphed into a pitched battle for the soul of the Democratic Party. Despite all the corporate media hype to the contrary, the long slog to the Democratic nomination is just getting started. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and Bernie Sanders knows a thing or two about winning cross-country races.

For a campaign as clearly vulnerable as the Clinton campaign to be assuming victory so early in the nomination process is rather breathtaking in its hubris. Fortunately, we live in a democracy, not a monarchy, and voters in 31 more states will decide who carries the Democratic banner into the general election.

(snip)

"Bernie is blazing a hopeful path to the future

(snip)

In “Unless the Democrats Run Sanders, a Trump Nomination Means a Trump Presidency,” Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson spells out why Sanders is the Democratic Party’s best hope against Donald Trump: “A Clinton match-up is highly likely to be an unmitigated electoral disaster, whereas a Sanders candidacy stands a far better chance. Every one of Clinton’s (considerable) weaknesses plays to every one of Trump’s strengths… From a purely pragmatic standpoint, running Clinton against Trump is a disastrous, suicidal proposition.” I agree. It would be foolhardy for Democrats to take a chance on Hillary in 2016.

March 7, 2016

As Clinton Equivocates on Fracking, Sanders Has One Answer: 'No.'

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/03/07/clinton-equivocates-fracking-sanders-has-one-answer-no

Democratic presidential candidates debate environmental issues in Flint, Michigan on Sunday

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both claim to oppose fracking, but only one of them has plans to ban it.

During Sunday's Democratic presidential debate in Flint, Michigan, where environmental issues are especially critical as residents grapple with a water contamination crisis, moderators asked the candidates where they stand on the controversial gas extraction method that involves injecting chemicals and water deep underground.

Clinton answered, "I don’t support it when any locality or any state is against it, number one. I don’t support it when the release of methane or contamination of water is present. I don’t support it, number three, unless we can require that anybody who fracks has to tell us exactly what chemicals they are using. By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place."

Sanders countered, "My answer is a lot shorter. No, I do not support fracking."

March 7, 2016

Democrats Have Their History Wrong — and Are About to Make a Grievous Mistake

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/democrats-have-their-history-wrong-and-are-about-make-grievous-mistake



Lesson of 1972 isn't that progressive nominees lose. Dems lose when they are out of step with voters, like Hillary.


This election cycle, Democratic Party leaders are pleading with younger voters to heed the lessons of history. Echoing George Santayana’s famous warning: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” they urge millennials to take a close look at what happened to Democrats in 1972. That was the year, they explain, that the Democratic Party made a monumental blunder at its national convention by empowering young people, women and minorities at the expense of party elites. The result was the nomination of George McGovern, a candidate whose ideas were so radical that they guaranteed a landslide victory for Richard Nixon.

Leaving aside whether such an interpretation of 1972 is accurate, there is a more fundamental issue here. What if pundits and Democratic Party leaders are focusing on the wrong election? What if the lessons that history has for us are to be found not in 1972 but in 1968? What if we are heeding the absolutely wrong warnings?

Much like 2016, the 1968 election was supposed to be a coronation.....

March 6, 2016

5 Obvious Pieces of Evidence that NAFTA Is Killing the US Economy

http://economyincrisis.org/content/nafta-killing-us-economy

When NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was passed, many people feared the worst. The results have indeed been disastrous. Just look at the results:

1. The trade deficit with Mexico has exploded

2. Mexican wages remain nearly as low as they were prior to NAFTA and are still a small fraction of our average wages

3. Wealth and power has not filtered to the people. Most of Mexico is still controlled by less than 100 corporations

4. Many of our other trading partners have relocated facilities to Mexico to circumvent other trade agreements with the U.S.

5. American manufacturing has lost 3 million jobs in the past 10 years as U.S. companies have also moved to Mexico for lower
wages and lax regulations

On the basis of the one-sided disastrous results over the past 15 years, whoever advocated NAFTA seems to be either grossly negligent of their duty of representing their constituents or is simply working contrary to the best interests of this country.

The evidence was clear that NAFTA would be a disaster.
------------------------------

ANd with Hillary's full support, Wild Bill sold us out.

March 6, 2016

"You're Fired!" The Abuses of "Skilled" Worker Visa Programs

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35066-you-re-fired-the-abuses-of-skilled-worker-visa-programs

Stuart Zwicke lasted eight years in the information technology department at Molina Healthcare of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, where he watched everyone on his original team let go.

"I did not apply to Molina," he says. "They reached out to me because of my job skills and technical skills. They brought me in to design and build their data center, the heartbeat of the entire company here in New Mexico."

The data center was miles from the company's main headquarters in Long Beach, California, and Zwicke and two others were the only ones working there. Instead of bringing in permanent help, he said, the company would rotate in groups of workers for a week or so at a time, to be trained at the center.

(SNIP)

To Otto, who also represents workers at Disney who were laid off and then required to train their replacements, the process of replacing American workers with H-1B temporary hires through companies like Cognizant is part of the further commodification of labor.

"Disney just doesn't care about people, that's the bottom line, which is funny for Disney because that's the business they're in," Otto says. "Everybody they replaced was highly skilled, highly productive, and highly regarded because each one of them had performance evaluations for several years running that said they were exceptional."

-----------------------And Then This:

COMPUTERWORLD: Here's where Clinton and Rubio stand on the H-1B visa issue
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2909983/it-outsourcing/heres-where-clinton-and-rubio-stand-on-the-h-1b-visa-issue.html

The two latest contenders to enter the presidential campaign sweepstakes -- Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Hillary Clinton, the onetime Democratic senator from New York and former secretary of state for President Barack Obama -- both support increasing the H-1B visa cap.....

(snip)

Clinton, too, supports an increase in the cap. In a 2007 talk, she made her position clear, saying: "I also want to reaffirm my commitment to the H-1B visa program and to increase the current cap. Foreign skilled workers contribute greatly to our U.S. technological development."

March 4, 2016

Bill Clinton’s Dubious Economic Legacies

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/03/bill-clintons-dubious-economic-legacies

With every televised U.S. presidential debate, listeners are fed a line of bull by candidates about how great previous United States presidents were and how the country needs to return to their policies in order to “make America great again!”

All that’s needed, the Republican candidates say, is to resurrect Reagan policies and today’s U.S. problems will be solved. “Vote for me, and I’ll return to Reagan and restore U.S. greatness,” we’re told.

With the Democrats, it’s a bit more subtle but the underlying message is the same. Under Hillary’s hubby, Bill Clinton in the 1990s, the U.S. created a record number of jobs, incomes were rising, the healthcare crisis was contained, and the U.S. had achieved a “new economy” of prosperity that would only improve further in the 21st century. Under Bill, we were on the right track. George W. Bush screwed it up by reversing course. All we need then is to get back to that “Clinton track” and good times will return again.

But what are the facts? Were Clinton policies a diversion from Reagan? A continuation? Worse?

(snip)

During Bill Clinton’s two terms in office, 1992-2000, 45 percent of all the income growth during the period went to the wealthiest 1 percent of families in the US, according to IRS data gathered by economist, Emmanuel Saez, of the University of California, Berkeley.

March 4, 2016

5 Reasons Not to Vote for Hillary Clinton

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/01/5-reasons-not-to-vote-for-hillary-clinton/

1. Money.
Insofar as Heraclitus was correct when he said “Character is fate,” Ms. Clinton can be depended upon to behave like the money-grubbing fiend she’s always been. Unlike Bernie Sanders who grew up in a modest, progressively oriented Brooklyn household, Hillary Clinton grew up in Republican affluence. Not for nothing did she later serve on the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart.

Despite the Vietnam War and civil rights movement nudging her, as a 20-year old, into the camp of the Democratic Party, we mustn’t forget that the accumulation of wealth has always been her primary concern. It’s not her fault. She was raised that way, and her two brothers, Hugh Rodham, Jr. and Tony Rodham, are testimony to that fact. Indeed, compared to Jimmy Carter’s harmless doofus brother Billy, Tony comes off as an avaricious and pathetic con man.

2. Force.
Look at her track record. Whenever and wherever there is an international dispute, her first impulse is to call upon America’s prodigious military might to quell it. In a word, the woman is a hawk. Indeed, why else would the military-minded Republican Senator John McCain have embraced her as he did? If it weren’t for the fact that she behaved like Margaret Thatcher on steroids, why would McCain ally himself with her?

March 3, 2016

Vote Wisely

March 3, 2016

Monsanto Is Suing California for Trying to Inform People That Roundup Causes Cancer

http://www.alternet.org/environment/monsanto-suing-california-trying-inform-people-roundup-causes-cancer

The biotech giant would prefer it if people didn’t know that glyphosate, the main ingredient in its bestselling weedkiller Roundup, is a probable carcinogen.


Once again, Monsanto is trying to take away our right to know, this time about carcinogenic chemicals used in household products and places all around us. In January, Monsanto filed a lawsuit against the state of California for its intent to list glyphosate, the main chemical used in Monsanto’s flagship Roundup herbicide, under California's Proposition 65, a law that mandates notification and labeling of all chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm, and prohibits their discharge into drinking waters of the state.

Enacted by California voters via ballot initiative in 1986, Prop 65 prohibits any business from knowingly or intentionally exposing any individual to a chemical known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity without first giving a clear and reasonable warning, and the discharge of such chemical into a source of drinking water is prohibited. The State relies on the findings of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) — the world’s leading authority on cancer — as the basis for listing chemicals that are known or probable carcinogens under Prop 65. In 2015, IARC concluded, by a unanimous decision, that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic.”
___________________________________

And once the TPP is in place Monsanto won't have to go to the trouble of suing in tax payer funded courts. They can just go to the secret cabal of their Corporate buddies and get a ruling in their favor. Thank You Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Terrific job screwing the American People